Vigilantes jamming annoying mobile yappers

Heh. For anyone who’s suffered — or suffers regularly — like the architect in the first part of this article, smile.

Link: Cellphone vigilantes try signal disobedience – International Herald Tribune

One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone.

“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.

Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission – and any others in a 30-foot, or 9-meter, radius.

“She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moley! Deliverance.”

I’d be useful to have one of those devices. If only to see the reaction from the idiot telling his friend that he’s “ON THE TRAIN” in a really loud voice.

But if the devices proliferate, it could get rather annoying…

)I wonder if someone has been tailing me when I’m trying to use my T-Mobile account recently? Or perhaps the network is just overloaded…)